CENTRAL CITY, Ky. (11/21/13) — The Central City Christmas Parade has been on Sunday as long as Mayor Barry Shaver can remember. The difference this year is the time of the event.

Shaver told Surfky News that the timing change was the result of popular demand.

"The Christmas parade has always been on Sunday, but in the past it's been at around 2 p.m. And, it was usually in November," said Shaver. "But we had so many people who said, 'Let's have a nighttime parade, and have it closer to Christmas.' So that's what we did."

After discussion with the various school bands, 5 p.m. Dec. 15 was the only time that seemed to work for all those involved, according to the mayor.

Now that the parade date has been set, some churches in the county have told the mayor the date and time are creating a conflict with their holiday activities.

"We sent out 274 letters stating, 'Let's try to put Christ back in Christmas and get more churches involved," said Shaver.

"I realize a lot of churches start their services at 6 p.m. on Sunday, but we were hoping that they might be able to roll their time back so we could have more churches involved in the parade," he said. "We do have a lot more churches participating with floats this year. The decision to have the event later in the day was in no way meant to cause conflict. The last thing we want people to have to do is choose between attending the parade or attending worship services."

Numerous people have voiced their displeasure with the scheduling conflict on Facebook, and the mayor told SurfKY he has received a few calls about the matter. Unfortunately, it's too late to reschedule the parade for this year, he said.

He said he hopes that next year, a date and time can be agreed upon that bring the community together.